That was something! Hamilton beat Verstappen by 3 thousandths of a second in qualifying. Second row for McLaren

Formula 1 has its eleventh Grand Prix on the schedule this weekend, out of the originally planned twenty-three. On Saturday, the drivers and teams qualified for Sunday’s Grand Prix, which, thanks to changes in tyre usage, offered a lot. Pole position was taken by Lewis Hamilton after an impressive battle, narrowly beating Max Verstappen.

It should be noted at the outset that Formula 1 tried an alternative tyre choice for qualifying at the Hungaroring for environmental reasons. This means that the teams have only eleven sets of tyres available, compared to the traditional thirteen.

In connection with this change, the drivers then had to wear the hardest tyre compound, marked in white, for the first part of qualifying. For the second qualifying segment, the drivers wore the medium set, and for the third part the softest one. And it really showed in the results.

The first part of qualifying (Q1)

As a result of the above change, the results from the first qualifying segment were quite wild. In fact, Q1 was dominated by Zhou Guangyu with a time of 1:18.143, ahead of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez.

On the other hand, Logan Sargeant in 20th, Kevin Magnussen in 19th, Júki Cunoda in 17th and Alex Albon in 16th did not qualify for the next qualifying segment.

A shocking result in Q1 was recorded by George Russell, who set the eighteenth fastest time. A very interesting fact is that the returning Daniel Ricciardo already beat his teammate – the Japanese Cunoda, who will start Sunday’s Grand Prix from seventeenth place.

Second part of qualifying (Q2)

Qualifying segment number 2 was therefore run on medium hardness tyres, which are understandably much more friendly for the fast attempts of individual drivers due to their easier warm-up and grip.

The second part of qualifying was won by Lando Norris with a time of 1:17.328, almost one tenth of a second ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas scored a superb fourth place.

A solid seventh place was recorded by Nico Hülkenberg. However, Carlos Sainz will not be happy with his result from the middle part of qualifying, as he did not progress to Q3 as a result of his eleventh place finish.

He lost only two thousandths of a second to tenth-placed Fernando Alonso. Twelfth-placed Esteban Ocon, thirteenth-placed Daniel Ricciardo, fourteenth-placed Lance Stroll and fifteenth-placed Pierre Gasly also failed to qualify.

Third qualifying session (Q3)

Qualifying segment 3 was run on the fastest set of tyres, with ten drivers battling it out for pole position as usual. And the drama was really great. Lewis Hamilton was the fastest of all the drivers to advance to Q3 with a time of 1:13.712.

The seven-time champion beat Verstappen by just three thousandths of a second. The second row was won by McLaren for the Hungarian Grand Prix – with Norris starting third and Oscar Piastri fourth. An amazing result in the form of fifth place was recorded by Zhou Kuan-yu.

Charles Leclerc will take the sixth starting slot at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Bottas set the seventh fastest time, Alonso eighth, Pérez ninth and Nico Hülkenberg rounded off the elite ten with a time of 1:17.186.

Source: F1 TV, Twitter